


Je suis tombé par terre, c'est la faute à Voltaire!

by Reading_By_Torchlight



Series: Days before the Storm [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Childhood, Gen, countryside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 08:39:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17784149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reading_By_Torchlight/pseuds/Reading_By_Torchlight
Summary: Enjolras tries and fails to escape one of his parents' soirées. Canon Era





	Je suis tombé par terre, c'est la faute à Voltaire!

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya,  
> found this on my laptop and thought I'd add it to this Little series.  
> Hope you enjoy :)

July 1812

He is six years of age.

The sun has not fully reached its zenith when he roams the seemingly endless fields of lavender but still he can feel the heat burning on his back and a light breeze blowing through his curls which have become even lighter than usual in the summer sun. He is wearing nothing but his shirt, breeches and a content smile. His little toes leave foot prints in the earth and he holds out his hand to brush over the bushes as he skips along the way. He has almost reached the other side of the field, where he knows the river is rushing softly as if to call him to sit by the cool water, when he hears her.

“Monsieur Julien, Monsieur Julien, attendez! Wait for me!” cries Adélaïde as she comes running towards him, gathering up her skirts in one hand and panting audibly. He can see pearls of sweat adorning her brow as she sinks down next to him, trying to regain composure and normalise her breathing. She gives him a level look and takes in the twigs and pieces of lavender in his hair which has long escaped its queue. Adélaïde sighs and reaches out to brush a lock out of his eyes and behind his ears.

“What ever shall I do with you, mon chouchou tout-fou?” she asks but gives him a fond smile. Julien does not know whether his former nurse wants him to answer so he just stands there, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Your Maman awaits you, young Monsieur. Why did you run away like that?” Adélaïde continues as she gets up. She sounds almost reproachful. But only almost. Adélaïde is never reproachful with him. She tries and fails to rub the dirt off his shirtsleeves. “Oh mon Dieu, Madame wants to leave in half an hour and we still need to fix you up! Why do you keep running away when you are supposed to meet your parents’ friends?”

He does not want to meet those people. None of them ever listen to him. There are big monsieurs with even bigger moustaches, slapping him on the shoulder and looking at him as though they were poking fun at him in a manner he does not understand. But even worse are their wives who coo at him like one would at a new born babe. “Oh what a beautiful child you have, Madame Enjolras! What a pretty boy! What a fine young man!” they cry. And: “Oh, Madame Dubois, would you look at his angelic face! Michelangelo himself couldn’t have painted a finer cherub!”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest and pouts.

“Why would I want to go there, ‘Délaïde? Papa parades me around like one of his hunting trophies” he says and Adélaïde shoots him a pitiful glance. “Besides, I do not like them…” he adds stroppily.

At that, she chuckles. “Can you keep a secret, mon petit puce?” she asks and he nods fervently. “I think Madame Enjolras doesn’t like them all that much either…”

She takes her sun hat and shoves it on top of his curls. “Now come, we do not want that pretty face of yours to catch a tan, do we?”

Julien reluctantly takes the hand she offers and together they skip back towards the house. He is sure that a long day lies ahead of him.

When he is lying in bed later 

that day, dressed in his long nightshirt and with his curls falling loosely over his pillow, he looks at his mother as she hovers over him, tucking the white linen neatly around his small form. In his eyes, Madame Enjolras is the most beautiful woman there is. Especially now, that she has taken out her hair pins and the golden curls come tumbling down over her dress and over her hips to her thighs. They are one of the aspects he has inherited from her, just like her deep blue eyes, her quick mind and that soft yet confident and determinate voice.

“Maman” he says and she stills, turning her eyes towards her son - blue meeting blue, just like the ever-present sky meeting the ocean, both of them seemingly calm but with the potential of a gravity-defying tour-de-force brooding beneath the surface.

“Yes, mon ange?” she urges, sitting down on the bed and starting to pet his hair.

“Adélaïde says, well she says you dislike father’s friends just as much as I do…well, I was wondering why that might be” he looks up at her and he could swear he sees her smile falter just the tiniest bit before regaining her countenance. Délaïde often chides him for being too direct but he has never understood why that might be a bad thing.  

“Someday, P’tit cœur, I’ll lend you a book of mine and then you’ll understand” his mother says and there is a hint of sorrow in her eyes that makes his heart twitch. He detests seeing people suffer and being unable to help, even more so when the person suffering is his beloved Maman.  As she bends down to kiss him goodnight, he can see that her eyes are glassy and when she mutters a last “Je t’aime” in his ear, he hears her voice break.

More often than not, his mother reminds him of a songbird in captivity, trying to break free from that gilded cage life has trapped her in so that she may fly to the land of her dreams. Sometimes the songbird will sing of those dreams, of her hopes and ideas but her desperation only grows as realisation dawns on her that the only one willing to listen to her singing is that little angel she calls her lifeline. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please leave me a comment down below. I love to hear everyone's thoughts.  
> Thank you for reading. :)


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